About The Festival

The success of the Tour de Wakatipu and a perceived desire from the cycling community led us to develop the Queenstown Bike Festival idea, and the first Bike Festival was born in 2011. Queenstown is already being spoken of as one of the three leading bike centers of the world alongside Morzine in France and Whistler in Canada.

The Festival combines mountain bikes, downhill bikes and road bikes through a series of events into one exciting package, with the following keystone events - the Teva Slopestyle, the Ben Lomond DirtMasters Downhill, the New World Tour de Wakatipu and the Speight Summit Super D.

The concept has been enthusiastically welcomed by everyone we have spoken to, and the inaugural festival was an unanimous success.

Skyline Enterprises, with two events utilising the gondola, were instrumental in staging the first festival, having supported two out of three of the main key races then. Other key partners in the inaugural Festival were Destination Queenstown, Outside Sports, John Knight, Lion Nathan with the Corona brand, New World Wakatipu through their support of the Tour de Wakatipu, as well as an array of smaller companies and individuals providing the vital backbone of such an enterprise: Vertigo Bikes, Dux de Lux, Ziptrek Ecotours, Element, Queenstown Bike Taxis, The Lone Star, the Queenstown Pedallers, Justin Leov, Tim Mackersey, Kashi Leuchs and some hardy volunteers.

For 2012, we welcome more companies and individuals in the festival family with Speight Summit, Teva, Radio Network, Surreal Bar, the Hilton Queenstown, Otago Daily Times, NZone Skydive, Pinewood, The World Bar, The Crowne Plazza and more.

A note about the OrganisersThe Bike Queenstown Charitable Trust was established in December 2011 and the trust’s stated main aim is to foster, promote, advocate for the use of bicycles in the region. The Queenstown Bike Festival is a vehicle to achieve one of its goals.The current trustees are the Chair, John Thompson of Wakatipu New World, and Tom Pryde, lawyer, Ron Mackersey, lawyer with the Trust currently seeking one more Board member.

Southern Traverse Ltd has been appointed as the organisation to operate and manage the Queenstown Bike Festival.

The Festival Organiser : Southern Traverse LtdBased in Queenstown, Southern Traverse Ltd is an International Sports Management Company directed by Geoff Hunt and Pascale Lorre, operating a number of different sportive events in New Zealand and overseas since 1991. This team has been responsible for the success of numerous events such as the Southern Traverse, the Discovery Channel Adventure Racing World Championship in Switzerland and its associated World Series, the New Zealand Mountain Running Championship, the New Zealand Multisports Championship, the Suzuki Vitara Powder Eight’s and many more. The company is nationally recognised for its unique products, its dedication to quality, safe practice and professionalism.In the New Zealand Tourism Awards 1999, the company won recognition for its achievements with the “Small Operators Award” and has been twice nominated for the Best Events category.